The Lost Boy
by Eregriel Gloswen
Summary: Charlie thinks about Claire, and a certain favorite childhood story.


My mother gave me a copy of _Peter Pan_ for my sixth birthday. I remember falling in love with the adventure, the feeling that if I tried hard enough, I could fly, fly away from school, and church, and trips to the dentist, and fights with Liam. Nothing was so big, so heavy that I couldn't rise above it and go back to this land of pirates and mermaids, redskins and lost boys, fairies and ticking crocodiles.

I kept that tattered old book for years. It was in the back pocket of my jeans the first time Driveshaft performed, in a little rundown pub in Manchester, and in the pocket of my jacket the day Liam told me we'd been signed to a label. As the band became steadily more successful, I realized that I had achieved my dream; when you're famous, you never grow old. I could be my own Peter Pan.

When things got too big, when nothing else seemed real, I opened the book, every page familiar, and instantly everything was in perspective. I even wrote a song about it once; I think I called it "Second to the Right." I showed it to Liam, and even went so far as to suggest putting it on the second album, but he dismissed the idea, and called my song "pointless" and "childish." Needless to say, he wrote most of the songs after that.

That was when it started getting bad. Things were bigger, and reality seemed further and further away. I found myself opening the book more and more (once onstage in the middle of a concert, even), but it helped me less and less. I threw myself into the music. After all, this was about the music, I kept telling myself. I didn't admit that I felt myself growing older. I couldn't fly away anymore.

Until the junk. That first time I was torn up, and feeling so broken inside, and no number of pages was going to help me. _Anything _had to be better than that. I suppose you know what happened next, and let me tell you, 'happened' doesn't cover it. I'd found that feeling I'd been searching for. I could fly. Everything was going on around me as if nothing had changed, but I had. I was that careless little boy inside, while the things that feeling let me do were anything but innocent. I didn't need the book anymore; all it did was hold me down. I left it on the counter backstage at some concert, I don't remember when. It was months before I even noticed it was gone.

Things started to change. I started to notice that the crowds were starting to get a bit quieter, the venues a little smaller, the concert posters a little lower on the bulletin boards. That was when Liam told me he was leaving once we finished the tour. My entire world came crashing down. I knew he'd been looking into rehab, but it had always been a little joke between us. Now he was serious, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. He was growing up, and he expected me to go along with him. He didn't know it yet, but I was more of a Lost Boy than ever.

Until now. Now I'm the ultimate Lost Boy. I mean, I have to admit, that was the first thing on my mind when I woke up on the beach. Granted, there was still a hit in my system at the time, but for a few deluded seconds, I thought I was in Neverland. It wasn't until I heard the screams that I realized what had happened.

I met you then, a day or two later, when I offered to help carry your bags. You struck me as… something, I wasn't sure what. We talked more, and I felt myself drawn to you, like Peter to Wendy. You were a natural Wendy, a mother before your time. You never told me straight out, but I always got the feeling you never planned to be a parent this soon, but then, neither did Wendy.

And now, just like Wendy, you're gone, kidnapped. I'm a poor excuse for a Peter Pan; I wasn't strong enough to fight off our own personal Captain Hook. Part of me actually hoped I'd actually die whenEthan tied that noose around my neck. After all, "to die will be an awfullybig adventure." But that's wrong of me to say. I don't know where you are, if you're even still alive, but I want to see for myself, in either case.

I searched through all the bags I could find, trying to find a book to read, but all I've seen since the crash is Sawyer's copy of sodding _Watership Down_. I can't help but hope that, somewhere, I might come across a familiar little book about a certain girl who flies away to a certain magical island. I'd like to read it to you, though I suppose I could tell you from memory. When you get back, of course. When we find you, and everything's okay again.

It'd be the other way around for once, the Lost Boy telling Wendy a story, but somehow that seems all right.


End file.
